how much would you charge??? (IT techy thing)

[mattpayne]

To drive 20 miles, pick up a PC because 'the modem doesnt work'

when you get it home, you find out that some herbert has totally fooked a windows install (Frun.log is dated 6th June) - no drivers, PnP is all screwed, no CDs, shitty P4 Advent thing... the only redeeming feature being that as its a recent attempted rebuild there are no user files on the machine... PC rebuilt with Win98SE only 40mins... but spent the next 4 freaking hours trying to find modem and audio drivers for the shite winmodem, and advent fcuked with MSI mother board (no even remotely useful drivers on either site, MSI dont even list it on thier useless website!)

70 meg of AOL download later (his spec!! not mine!) approx 100 meg of drivers and windows updates...

Ill have to drive 20 miles to drop it back, but i just dont know what to charge...

I only collected it for a single driver update...!!! :)

[mr-mac]

I always use the USA MSI site.... Usually very good for drivers....

As to cost.... How long did it take you?

[shadowninja]

I'd consider charging 40p per mile, plus time to drive, plus time to install/test/. (Not fair to charge time to download... could make a small fortune if you downloaded on 28.8kbps ;) and don't have to actually do anything.)

Snag is, you shoulda explained that it would take X hours where X is a lot more than you and client expected once you realised it wasn't gonna be simple, as the charge might be more than the value of the PC... I mean imagine if you took your car into a garage and they found ligitimate faults which they fixed in good faith and then charged 5 hours when they told you they'd take 1 hour... you'd be livid.

All the best anyway :)

[mattpayne]

:) the guy that i needed to talk to is away on holiday till friday, and im off for 10 days on friday! so I made the choice to rebuild it... I know the company, and the bloke, and hes a nutter for even thinking about attempting it himself! The company will pay, irrespective of what I charge them... this will also be the final time they will use me as they are closing this office and relocating to heathrow... :(
i was thinking along the lines of about £130 all in... it took a while, but i was watching the swingers progam in the other room too... so i could have concentrated a bit harder! and done it a bit quicker lol!

i just know that if i was a plumber, i could quote 3 times that much... ;)

[Davey D]

i have been in a similar situation sorting out a computer for someone, it was nothing but trouble, plus had to find all the drivers off the net etc etc. around the £100 is what i would charge for a seriously problematic machine, but i would let them know while sorting the machine out that it is being a total pig!! :thumbs:

[AshT_200]

Personally I would have let him take the decision to rebuild it, not done it for him.

That's like taking your car to Nissan for a service and they make the decision to do an Engine Rebuild...

Tho if they'll pay for it, 20 - 25 quid an hour is fair I guess

[Dave_S]

I used to charge £20 an hour this stuff :)

Dave

[Martin T]

If they would have got me to do it via my employers that would have been a bill of £480 plus 40p per mile.

I dont think that £130 is that unreasnoble :)

[mattpayne]

The machine had such a bodged install of Win 98 on it - you stick a PCi card in, and you couldnt get windows to detect it, try running the correct drivers, still couldnt get the video card to come up in more than 16 colours, ACPI problems total mess... it would have taken twice as long in my time to fix it, and even then I wouldnt have felt happy letting it go out...

The company usually likes to err on the side of caution so the rebuild will be accepted, given the sorry state i collected the machine in!!!

Im pleased that my estimation of cost isnt too bad... and ive done less and charged more in the past...!! (£50 to drive out, flick the power swtich to 'on' on the back of a printer, drink a coffee and leave! - i wasnt going to charge, but they insisted!) so I dont know why im querying it! lol!!!